Dear Bankless Nation,
Over the past year I wrote over 150 articles about NFTs for Bankless!
Looking back on all that’s happened, 2022 was certainly a defining period for the young NFT ecosystem, which recently enjoyed advances in many areas but also recently faced the growing sting of its first major crypto winter.
As we get ready to face 2023 and its open possibilities, what do you say we look back on the big NFT happenings from the last year to catch up on all that’s happened?
For today’s post, then, it’s time to take a selected tour through some of 2022’s most notable NFT headlines. Let’s dive in!
-WMP
2022 NFT highlights and headlines
January 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- LooksRare announced the arrival of its NFT marketplace
- GameStop revealed to be working on its own NFT marketplace
- Nate Alex launched on-chain battle royale ChainFaces Arena
- Nouns DAO traded a beer-themed Noun with Bud Light
Proposal 33: Feature Noun glasses in a Super Bowl commercial and on real beverage cans
— 4156.⌐◨-◨ (@punk4156) 5:26 PM ∙ Jan 11, 2022
nouns.wtf/vote/33 🚀
- OpenSea acquired Dharma
- Gem launched its NFT marketplace aggregator platform
- Axie Infinity released the RON token
- Reservoir introduced its NFT orderbook protocol
- Dmitri Cherniak published Dead Ringers: Edition
February 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Lens Protocol announced its web3 social platform
- x2y2 launched a vampire attack on OpenSea
- CryptoPunk #5822 was resold for 8,000Ξ
CRYPTOPUNK 5822 WAS JUST BOUGHT FOR 8000 ETH ($23 MILLION DOLLARS) 🤯
— 🏝nathanhead.eth🏝 (@NathanHeadPhoto) 8:34 PM ∙ Feb 12, 2022
THIS IS THE HIGHEST CRYPTOPUNK SALE BY NEARLY DOUBLE
- SHL0MS introduced their $CAR conceptual art project
- Urbit unveiled plans for its own L2
March 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Pixelmon totally botched its NFT collection launch
- CyberBrokers stored their metadata completely on-chain
- Nouns DAO launched its innovative Prop House community funding system
- Axie Infinity saw its Ronin bridge hacked for $600M
April 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- WAGMI United completed a takeover of Crawley Town FC
- Luca Netz acquired the Pudgy Penguins IP for 750Ξ
- Drift made photography history with +10k mints of First Day Out
- Coinbase NFT launched in beta
- PROOF Collective released the Moonbirds collection
- Sotheby’s held its Natively Digital 1.3: Generative Art auction
- OpenSea acquired NFT marketplace aggregator Gem
- Yuga Labs held its Otherside land sale
May 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Azuki creators were revealed to have been the creators of multiple abandoned NFT projects
- Goblin Town arrived on the scene in wild fashion
- Lil Nouns launched its protocol and community
- Foundation opened to all creators
- Dr. Disrespect and his Midnight Society game studio partnered with Polygon on NFTs
June 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Nate Chastain was charged with insider trading at OpenSea
- PoolTogether raised 100% of its legal crowdfunding goal with Pooly NFTs
- sartoshi faded into the ether, a.k.a. left the space
- Async Art launched its generative music platform Music Blueprints
- OpenSea migrated to its new SeaPort Protocol
- ClubNFT launched its metadata storage backup tool
- Uniswap acquired NFT marketplace aggregator Genie
July 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- GameStop launched its NFT marketplace beta
- Sudoswap released its NFT AMM marketplace
- Nick Tomaino bought CryptoPunk #4156 for 2,691Ξ
Recently bought Cryptopunk #4156 for $3.31M
— 1492.eth (@NTmoney) 4:01 PM ∙ Jul 26, 2022
Here’s why:
August 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Async Art opened to all creators
- PROOF Collective entered Moonbirds into the public domain
- XCOPY designated all his art hitherto as CC0
- Vitalik Buterin proposed stealth addresses for NFTs
- Jonthan Mann released his music collector tool Song-A-DEX
- CrypToadz migrated to onchain storage
- BLVKHVND became the first esports DAO to win a world title by winning the 1st Pokémon UNITE Championship
September 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Meta introduced support for posting NFTs across Instagram and Facebook
- Sorare entered into a partnership with the NBA for a fantasy basketball game
- Starbucks tapped Polygon for its NFT-based membership rewards program
- Axie Infinity started Origins: Season 1 gameplay
- Tyler Hobbs launched the collaborative generative art project QQL
- sound.xyz released the Sound Protocol
We’re excited to announce the Sound Protocol.
— sound.xyz (🎧,🎧) (@soundxyz_) 5:07 PM ∙ Sep 21, 2022
✅Permissionless base layer
✅Artist-owned & non-upgradeable song contracts
✅Permanent & decentralized metadata
✅Custom mint formats
✅Payments & end-to-end royalties
This is a monumental step forward for Sound.
Here’s why👇
- Linagee Name Registrar was rediscovered as the oldest NFT project on Ethereum
October 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Art Blocks released its 2.0 version
- Rarible unveiled its 2.0 version
- The U.S. SEC launched an investigation into BAYC creators Yuga Labs for potential securities law violations
- Blur launched its NFT marketplace aggregator
- Twitter started testing NFT tweet tiles
- sound.xyz released its Sound Market
- OpenSea unveiled a copymint detection system
- Art Gobblers by Justin Roiland and Paradigm launched
November 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Bankless introduced Bankless Collectibles and Bankless Market
- Zora launched its Drops and Nouns Builder tools
- Instagram added an NFT toolkit
- PartyDAO released NFT coordination-centric Party Protocol
- OpenSea launched an onchain enforcement tool for NFT royalties
- UpShot opened its NFT appraisal platform
- Uniswap launched its NFT marketplace aggregator
December 2022
✍️ Metaversal highlights:
📣 Big news:
- Tessera introduced the Tessera Market and Tessera Protocol
- PartyDAO released an optimized version of the PartyBid app
- Finiliar launched oracle connectivity
- Decentraland added support for LAND rentals
A tough year, but plenty to be excited for
The NFT ecosystem faced its share of ups and downs in 2022. In some ways, the past year felt like a wilder ride than the raging bull market of 2021!
Yet beyond all the chaos and drama we faced in 2022, we also undoubtedly made promising advances in all directions. From new experiments to new platforms and new protocols, there’s never been more to do and never been more to be excited about around digital things.
That said, the fundamental reasons that many of us were excited about NFTs going into 2022 are the same reasons we’re still excited about them as we head into the new year.
In other words, the tech around NFTs continues to improve, bringing better efficiency and security. Mainstream adoption continues to pick up steam. And the ability for NFTs to disrupt and revolutionize traditional industries, like collectibles and gaming, will maintain them as big drivers of innovation for the foreseeable future. 2023 is poised to be another interesting year, then, to say the least!